Lesson 1

Organizing Data

Let’s find ways to show patterns in data

Problem 1

Here is data on the number of cases of whooping cough from 1939 to 1955.

year number of cases
1941 222,202
1950 120,718
1945 133,792
1942 191,383
1953 37,129
1939 103,188
1951 68,687
1948 74,715
1955 62,786
1952 45,030
1940 183,866
1954 60,866
1944 109,873
1946 109,860
1943 191,890
1949 69,479
1947 156,517
  1. Make a new table that orders the data by year.
  2. Circle the years in your table that had fewer than 100,000 cases of whooping cough.
  3. Based on this data, would you expect 1956 to have closer to 50,000 cases or closer to 100,000 cases?

Problem 2

In volleyball statistics, a block is recorded when a player deflects the ball hit from the opposing team. Additionally, scorekeepers often keep track of the average number of blocks a player records in a game. Here is part of a table that records the number of blocks and blocks per game for each player in a women’s volleyball tournament. A scatter plot that goes with the table follows.

blocks blocks per game
13 1.18
1 0.17
5 0.42
0 0
0 0
7 0.64
A scatterplot. Horizontal, from 0 to 30, by 7 point 5’s. Vertical, from 0 to 2, by 0 point 5’s. 16 data points. Trend upward and to right.

Label the axes of the scatter plot with the necessary information.

Problem 3

A cylinder has a radius of 4 cm and a height of 5 cm.

  1. What is the volume of the cylinder?
  2. What is the volume of the cylinder when its radius is tripled?
  3. What is the volume of the cylinder when its radius is halved?
(From Unit 5, Lesson 18.)